In the early morning of February 15, the NFT trading platform Blur conducted its first round of airdrops, airdropping a total of 360 million tokens to more than 120,000 addresses, with more than 120,000 addresses. Calculated based on the price on the day of launch, 5,835 addresses received more than 10,000 coins, making an estimated profit of over 6,500 US dollars, and 23 addresses received 1 million coins, making a profit of approximately 650,000 US dollars.
Currently, the second round of airdrops has started. Although the incentive details have not yet been announced, all bidding and listing activities before April 1st will receive double points. Stimulated by the first round of "wealth creation myths", many people have turned their attention to "earning points", which has brought long-lost vitality to the NFT market, and transaction volume continues to rise.
What changes will Blur's continuous airdrop plan and the Bidding and Points mechanisms behind it bring to the NFT market? PANews data column PAData will discuss the following issues in combination with recent NFT trading market data and Blur's trading data:
At the macro level, does the Blur airdrop stimulate "consumer surplus" for the entire NFT trading market, or does it grab the "cake" of other trading markets? At the micro-transaction level, the closer the Bidding is to the floor price, the higher the Points can be obtained. Will this push the price of NFTs down? What is the difference in bidding depth for different projects? How do high-point users accumulate points through Bidding and Listing behaviors: What projects do they mainly bid for? What is the bidding strategy? What is the current estimated revenue situation?
Data analysis shows:
Blur stimulated new trading demand. The daily trading volume of 15 trading markets in the past week (02/13-02/20) increased by 229.05%, and the number of daily trading addresses increased by about 19.46%. Blur's daily trading volume increased by 467%, and the number of daily trading addresses increased by 46%. In the recent market growth process, Blur has squeezed many other trading markets, especially in terms of trading volume, and has less pressure in terms of user scale. This also shows to a certain extent that Blur has attracted more "high net worth" users in this growth. The bidding depth of the 10 top projects is best within the range of the floor price and 1% above the floor price, and the bidding depth of the 6 popular projects is best within the range of 5% below the floor price. The Points rule has played the expected role, making the bid price close to the floor price. According to statistics, the average deviation of the highest bid from the floor price of the 100 projects with the highest trading volume on Blur in the past 7 days is about 0.72%. This ultimately gave the floor price downward momentum. For the top 100 projects in terms of transaction volume, the floor price on Blur is 4.97% lower than the average on Opensea, and the 7-day transaction volume on Blur is 0.59% higher than the average on Opensea. However, there is no volume-price relationship across markets, that is, higher transaction volume on Blur has nothing to do with the floor price, and the lower floor price is mainly affected by the Bidding-Points mechanism. For the top projects, the floor prices on Blur are all lower than those on Opensea, especially BoredApeYachtClub and Doodles, which are 9.98% and 6.51% lower, respectively. This also explains why the bidding depth of these two projects is concentrated within 5% above the floor price. There are 17 projects that have been bid by 3 or more high-scoring users, among which PudgyPenguins, Moonbirds, CloneX and BoredApeKennelClub have been bid by 8 high-scoring users. The total number of effective bids (Open) by 10 high-scoring users is about 62,700 times, the average bid deviation from the floor price is about -16.32%, and the average bid execution rate is about 92.87%. The bidding mode can be roughly divided into three categories. The total value of the NFTs currently held by the 10 high-scoring users is lower than the cost after being estimated at the floor price, that is, they are currently in an estimated loss state. The average estimated loss is 90 ETH, equivalent to 144,900 US dollars. In order to obtain high points, it is necessary to invest a large amount of capital cost, and, encouraged by the points rule, the floor price on the Blur market has a downward momentum, which requires users participating in Bidding to continuously and dynamically manage their cost-estimated value gap. The management standard of this gap should be the expectation of the airdrop value.01 Blur stimulates new trading demand, with trading volume increasing in 12 of the 15 trading markets
Before and after the airdrop, the more users trade NFTs on Blur, the more tokens they get. So, does this airdrop only stimulate Blur or the entire NFT trading market? In other words, does Blur's airdrop stimulate new trading demand, stimulate "consumer surplus", or redistribute the "cake"?
PAData has compiled statistics on the trading conditions of 15 trading markets, including Blur, OpenSea, LooksRare, Gem, Alpha Sharks, X2Y2, Reservoir, CryptoPunks, Sudoswap, Foundation, Element, OKX, Uniswap, Rarible, and BitKeep, since this month. Judging from the data results, the trading volume and number of trading addresses in multiple trading markets have increased significantly. Blur has stimulated new trading demand and has made the "cake" bigger to a certain extent.
Judging from the trading volume (healthy trading volume after going to WashTrading), the daily trading volume of 15 trading markets in the last week (02/13-02/20) increased from 21,000 ETH to 69,200 ETH, with a weekly increase of 229.05%. Zooming in on the time period, the overall daily trading volume this month increased by 284.97%, with a significant growth trend. The highest value during the period once exceeded 72,100 ETH.
The growth in overall trading volume is not entirely driven by Blur. From the perspective of various trading markets, 12 of the 15 trading markets within the statistical scope have seen an increase in trading volume in the past week. Among them, in the past week, Blur's daily trading volume has increased significantly by 45,300 ETH, an increase of 467%. Secondly, Opensea's daily trading volume has also increased by 2,413 ETH, an increase of 30%. In addition, Gem and AlphaSharks also have slightly larger trading volumes, with daily trading volumes increasing by 492 ETH and 431 ETH, respectively, an increase of approximately 211% and 253%, respectively.
However, it should be pointed out that the trading volume of each trading market is not all healthy. In the recent increase, unhealthy trading volume (WashTrading) has also increased. Especially Blur, the unhealthy trading volume surged by 2851% in the past week, and the proportion of unhealthy trading volume increased by 274%. The current unhealthy trading volume is the highest among the five observed markets, about 11.1 million US dollars. However, it is interesting that the largest competitor Opensea has also seen a significant increase in unhealthy trading volume in the past week, reaching 1215%, and the proportion of unhealthy trading volume has increased by 704%.
Currently (02/20), Blur's daily trading volume is about 55,100 ETH, accounting for 79.46% of the total trading volume of the 15 trading markets, and is absolutely dominant. Opensea's daily trading volume is 10,500 ETH, accounting for 15.21% of the total trading volume. In terms of trading share, the combined market share of the two reaches 94.56%, leaving little room for survival for other trading markets. Among the remaining trading markets, only LooksRare and Gem account for more than 1% of the trading volume.
From the perspective of the change in trading volume market share, in the past week, only OKX, which has a smaller base, and Blur, the leading market of this growth, have increased, with increases of 230% and 72% respectively. The trading volume market share of the other 13 trading markets has all declined, among which X2Y2 has the largest decline, reaching 89%. Other markets with declines of more than 50% include Sudoswap, Reservoir, Foundation, Opensea, LooksRare, CryptoPunks and Rarible.
It can be said that although Blur has stimulated the growth of transaction volume in the entire market, due to its dominance, it has squeezed many other parts of the transaction market during this incremental process.
The changes in transaction addresses are similar. The number of daily transaction addresses in 15 trading markets in the past week (02/13-02/20) increased from 49,000 to 58,500, with a weekly increase of about 19.46%. If the time period is extended to this month, the increase will expand to 32.49%. In general, the increase in transaction addresses is far less than the increase in transaction volume. This may mean that the recent prosperity of the NFT market is driven by a small number of incremental addresses.
However, unlike the increase in trading volume in most trading markets, only 7 trading markets have seen an increase in the number of trading addresses in the past week, accounting for about half of the observed range. Among them, Blur's trading address number increased by 8,888, an increase of 46%, which is a relatively obvious increase. Other trading addresses with large increases include AlphaSharks, which increased by 1,915, an increase of about 57%. On the contrary, Opensea's trading addresses decreased the most, with a decrease of 1,612 in the past week, a drop of about 21%.
At present (02/20), Blur's daily transaction addresses are about 20,800, accounting for 35.53% of the total transaction addresses of the 15 trading markets, ranking second. Opensea still has the largest user scale, with 27,900 ETH daily transaction addresses, accounting for 47.76% of the total transaction addresses. If the number of transaction addresses is understood as the user scale, then from the user share point of view, the combined share of the two reaches 83.29%. Among the remaining trading markets, only Gem and Alpha Sharks have a user share of more than 5%, and most of the others are less than 0.5%.
From the perspective of the change in user share, in the past week, the 15 trading markets were roughly evenly split. Alpha Sharks, Blur, BitKeep, Reservoir, Foundation, Element and OKX all grew, with Blur’s user share growing by 46%. Uniswap, Sudoswap, Gem, OpenSea, LooksRare, X2Y2, CryptoPunks and Rarible all declined, with Opensea’s user share falling by 21%.
Compared with Blur's strong influence in transaction volume growth, Blur's pressure on other parts of the transaction market in terms of user scale growth is relatively smaller. Overall, this also shows to a certain extent that Blur has attracted more "high net worth" users in this growth.
02 The average bid on Blur deviates from the floor price by 0.72%. The bids for top projects are mostly higher than the floor price, while the opposite is true for popular projects.
In the past, larger trading markets such as OpenSea, LooksRare, and X2Y2 mainly adopted a model similar to the order book, which made poor liquidity a core pain point that hindered the development of NFT. Now, Blur has innovatively introduced a bidding mechanism, making the trading model similar to AMM in DeFi. Since the trading objects of this mechanism are aggregated from a single NFT to an NFT collection, and bids close to the floor price are encouraged, this blurs the particularity of NFTs in the transaction process. Both buyers and sellers need to bear price risks. One of the functions of BLUR is to bridge risks and encourage the provision of liquidity.
So, what is the current status of the operation of this bidding mechanism? At the micro-transaction level, what is the actual impact of this mechanism on prices?
Currently (02/20), Blur's BiddingPool balance has reached 131 million USD, a significant increase of 258.53% from 36.5246 million USD a week ago (02/13). In terms of inflows, the recent growth mainly started on February 15, when the net inflow reached 21,500 ETH. Although the net inflow immediately dropped after that, the average daily net inflow as of the 20th was still about 5,450 ETH, far higher than the previous daily average of 117 ETH this month.
In order to observe the impact of the Bidding mechanism on different categories of NFTs, PAData selected the 10 projects with the highest transaction volume on Blur in the past 7 days (hereinafter referred to as the top projects) and the 10 projects with the highest transaction volume in the past hour (removing the projects that duplicated with the top projects and retaining 6 projects, hereinafter referred to as hot projects) for observation.
Judging from the situation of BiddingPool, the balance of the bidding pool of top projects is mostly above 22,000 ETH, while the balance of the bidding pool of popular projects is mostly below 1,500 ETH. This is related to the floor price of the project. The floor price of the top projects is mostly over 2 ETH, and the highest BAYC is over 70 ETH, while the floor price of popular projects is mostly less than 0.5 ETH, the highest CoolCats is no more than 2.5 ETH, and the lowest The Verification Of Man is only 0.04 ETH.
According to the official points rules, "the closer you bid to the floor price for top collections, the more points you will get." It can be inferred that the transaction depth on Blur should be concentrated around the floor price. If it is concentrated on the left side, it is likely to push the floor price down, and it is likely that the purpose of bidding is not to close the deal, but to get points; if it is concentrated on the right side, it is likely to push the floor price up, and it is likely that the purpose of bidding is to close the deal and then get more points by listing again.
PAData further captured the total bids of 10 top projects within the price range of ±2% of the floor price, and the total bids of 6 popular projects within the price range of ±10% of the floor price, to observe the structure of bidding depths of different projects[1]. In general, the top projects have the best depth within the range of 1% above the floor price, and the popular projects have the best depth within the range of 5% below the floor price.
Specifically, among the 10 top projects, the bidding depth structure is quite diverse. The two most common structural types are that the bidding depth is concentrated in the range of 1% above the floor price and above the floor price. The former includes the three projects Azuki, Otherdeed and Beanz, and the latter includes the three projects MutantApeYachtClub, BoredApeKennelClub and Moonbirds. Another structural type worth noting is that the bidding depth is concentrated in the range of 2% and above the floor price, including Doodles and BoredApeYachtClub. In particular, BoredApeYachtClub has many bids above +5%, which are not shown here. This phenomenon does not occur in other projects within the statistical range. This distribution of bidding depth may be related to the price difference of the same project in different trading markets, which will be analyzed later.
Among the 10 popular projects, the bidding depth structure is relatively simple, and it is exactly the opposite of the top projects. The bidding depth of all projects is at the floor price level, the only difference is the degree below the floor price. Among them, the bidding depths of Cool Cats, IROIRO, MERGE VV and The Weirdo Ghost Gang are mainly concentrated in the range of 5% below the floor price, while the bidding depths of The Verification Of Man and CRYPTONINJA WORLD are mainly concentrated in the range of 10% below the floor price. However, CRYPTONINJA WORLD has some extreme bids that are 114% higher than the floor price and 20% lower than the floor price. It can be seen that the price fluctuations of popular projects are relatively large, and the consensus on prices is unstable.
From the overall situation, the Points rule has played the expected role, making the bid price close to the floor price. According to statistics, the average deviation of the highest bid from the floor price of the 100 projects with the highest transaction volume on Blur in the past 7 days is about 0.72%, and the deviation of the highest bid from the floor price of 95% of the projects is between -2.06% and 3.5%. The bid deviation of other short-term popular projects will be even higher. In this way, the floor price has downward momentum. For example, the floor price recorded on February 23 of BoredApeYachtClub was 69.99 ETH, but the floor price recorded on the 25th was only 66.20 ETH.
The cross-market price performance of the same project can provide a more comprehensive understanding of the impact of the bidding mechanism. PAData also compared the trading volume and floor price of the 100 projects with the highest trading volume on Blur in the past 7 days with the difference between the project and Opensea, removed the unmatched projects, and retained a total of 86 projects for analysis.
In general, the floor prices of these projects on Blur are 4.97% lower than those on Opensea, and the 7-day trading volume on Blur is 0.59% higher than that on Opensea. However, the statistical results show that for the same project, the difference in trading volume between Blur and Opensea has nothing to do with the difference in floor prices, that is, if a project has a higher trading volume on Blur than on Opensea, it does not mean that it will have a higher or lower floor price on Blur than on Opensea.
It can be said that, for now, the bidding mechanism has no impact on the formation of the floor price at the cross-market level, because this is not a price change driven by trading volume, but is entirely influenced by the bidding-points system, so the length of this impact depends on the effectiveness of the mechanism.
However, there are two points that require special attention.
First, there are some NFT cases where the trading volume on Blur is much higher than that on Opensea, and the floor price on Blur is significantly lower than that on Opensea. For example, Sewer Pass has 126% more trading volume on Blur than on Opensea, and the floor price is -3.1% lower than that on Opensea. But such cases are very rare.
Second, for the top projects, the floor prices on Blur are all lower than Opensea, especially BoredApeYachtClub and Doodles, whose floor prices on Blur are 9.98% and 6.51% lower than Opensea, respectively. This also explains why the bidding depth of these two projects is concentrated within 5% above the floor price, because even so, there is still room for cross-market arbitrage. However, due to the friction cost of handling fees for on-chain operations, even if there is a difference in the floor price, no user has "moved bricks to level it out".
03 The trading strategies of high-score users are differentiated, and the current estimated revenue is negative
How do high-score users accumulate points through bidding and listing? PAData has collected transaction data of the top 10 users (high-score users) in terms of total historical points. At the same time, 8 of these 10 users are also the top 10 users in the points ranking in the last 24 hours. By analyzing the transaction behaviors of these 10 users, we can get a glimpse of the strategy of "whales" to brush points.
Users can earn points by listing. If the ratio of the number of listings to the total number of holdings is regarded as the listing rate, it can simply measure the asset liquidity level and points of users in recent transactions. At present, the average listing rate of 10 high-point users is about 84.63%, which can be understood as the current "inventory" status of most high-point users is in a high turnover state. Among them, 77E3E9 and CBB0FE have the highest listing rate, reaching 100%, and all assets are in a tradable state. The listing rate of MACHIBIGBROTHER.ETH, which has the highest points, is the lowest, only 45.77%, less than half. The listing rate of 8BC110, which ranks second in points, is not high either, only 66.14%. They still have a lot of room to earn points through listing in the future.
In addition to listing, Bidding can also earn points. From the number of NFT collections (projects) with historical bids, except for the two special extreme cases of 5E1416 bidding 464 projects and 77E3E9 bidding 1 project, the number of projects bid by other users is concentrated between 10-20. Among them, there are 17 projects bid by 3 or more high-scoring users, including the top projects BoredApeKennelClub, CloneX, Doodles, MutantApeYachtClub, Otherdeed, Azuki, Beanz, BoredApeYachtClub, Opepen Edition, Moonbirds and popular projects CoolCats, and other projects such as PudgyPenguins, Checks - VV Edition, Rektguy, Meebits, RENGA, Moonbirds Oddities. Among them, PudgyPenguins, Moonbirds, CloneX and BoredApeKennelClub have been bid by 8 high-scoring users. It can be seen that the bidding objects of high-score users are closely in line with the official rules - top projects (TopCollections).
From a more micro perspective of bidding behavior, the total number of effective bids (Open) by 10 high-score users was about 62,700, the average bid deviation from the floor price was about -16.32%, and the average bid execution rate was about 92.87%. However, the number of effective bids and the deviation from the floor price of different high-score users varied greatly.
Generally speaking, the bidding behavior of high-score users can be classified into two categories. The first category, such as 9A68CB, 8BC110, 9C8152, and 4D417D, has about 5,000 bids and a bid execution rate of about 90%. The bids are very close to the floor price, which is the ideal type that conforms to the rules.
The second category, such as MACHIBIGBROTHER.ETH, MRGHOSTMINTFUN.ETH, CBB0FE, has fewer bids than the first category, about 2,500 times, and a slightly higher bid execution rate than the first category, about 96%, but the bids are significantly lower than the floor price. In addition, there is another category, such as 5E1416 and 97C7D9, which have bids higher than 10,000 times, and the bids deviate greatly from the floor price, but the execution rates vary. This type of users may have more "bargain hunting" behaviors.
However, it costs money to earn points. From the cost of high-point users (referring to the transaction cost in Blur, if it is a transfer, the cost is recorded as zero), as of the afternoon of February 25, the average cost of 10 high-point users reached 1098.29 ETH, which is equivalent to 1.7869 million US dollars according to the average ETH price of 1627 US dollars given by Coingecko this month. Among them, the highest cost is MACHIBIGBROTHER.ETH, which has invested 5636 ETH, equivalent to 9.1697 million US dollars. Even CBB0FE, which has the lowest investment cost, has reached 17 ETH, equivalent to 28,200 US dollars.
Moreover, although most high-scoring users are still profitable in terms of historical revenue and losses, without exception, in Blur's score-brushing transactions, the total value of the NFTs currently held by these 10 high-scoring users is lower than the cost after being estimated at the floor price, that is, they are currently in an estimated loss state. Basically, the more you invest, the more you lose. For example, MACHIBIGBROTHER.ETH is currently estimated to have lost 535.8 ETH, equivalent to $871,700, and 97C7D9 is currently estimated to have lost 249.9 ETH, equivalent to $406,600. The average estimated loss of the 10 high-scoring users is currently 90 ETH, equivalent to $144,900.
It can be seen that in order to obtain high points in the second round, a large capital cost is required. Moreover, encouraged by the points rule, the floor price in the Blur market has a downward momentum, which requires users participating in Bidding to continuously and dynamically manage their cost-estimated value gap. The management standard for this gap should be the expectation of the airdrop value. If the total value of the airdrop can cover it, then the current estimated loss becomes a cost in disguise. Otherwise, the current estimated loss will become a real loss.
In addition to the "myth of wealth creation", it should be noted that in the first round of airdrops, 50% of users received less than 287 tokens, and the vast majority received only 10 tokens. According to the listing price of 0.65, the value of the airdrop received by ordinary users does not exceed US$187. Users participating in Bidding and Points transactions need to pay more attention to risk management.
the data shows:
[1] Considering that the official minimum price gradient is 0.01 ETH, and the floor price of popular projects is relatively low, if the floor price of the top projects is uniformly processed, it will not be possible to show the depth, so the scale is adjusted to ±10%. In addition, all prices are rounded to 0.01 ETH (retain two decimal places), which may cause certain errors, but has no effect on the overall structural judgment.
